1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer software. More particularly, the invention relates to the field of streamed applications, e.g., an application which executes on a host computer system, where executable code blocks for the application are dynamically streamed to the host computer system from a server computer system during execution of the application.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a rapidly growing network of interconnected computers from which users and applications can access a wide variety of resources. Initial widespread use of the Internet was limited to the delivery of static information. A newly developing area of functionality is the delivery and execution of complex software applications via the Internet.
One technique for delivering a software application to a host computer is to first download the entire application to the host computer from a server computer via the Internet, and then install and execute the software application on the host computer. However, the download time can be prohibitively long for large applications, resulting in a long wait between the time when the download begins and the time when the software application begins local execution.
More recently, streaming technology has been used to stream the executable code for a software application from a server computer to a host computer in such a way that allows the application to begin execution on the host computer before all of the executable code for the application has been delivered to the local host computer. Such a software application is referred to as a “streamed application”. For example, the server computer may first stream one or more startup blocks which include just enough executable code for the streamed application to be launched on the host computer. Upon receiving the startup blocks, the host computer may execute the startup blocks to launch the streamed application. Further blocks of executable code for the streamed application may then be dynamically streamed to the host computer from the server computer while the streamed application is executing.